Emily Bronte portrait on loan from the National Portrait Gallery

Yorkshire Post

The Bronte Parsonage have currently displayed a Portrait of Emily Bronte which is on loan from the National Portrait Gallery until October.  The Emily Brontë portrait, painted by Branwell Brontë in circa 1833, was last hung in the Parsonage 17 years ago (2008).

Transcript

00:00I'm Anne Dinsdale and I'm the Principal Curator at the Bronte Parsonage Museum where we are today.

00:06This is Branwell Bronte's portrait of his sister Emily. It was painted in about 1833, 1834

00:16and originally it was part of a group portrait which included all four Bronte siblings and it's

00:25usually known as the gun group because Branwell featured in the centre holding a gun and with

00:31some dead birds on the table in front of him. After the deaths of all the Brontes the painting was

00:39inherited by Charlotte Bronte's widower Arthur Bell Nichols. He had no great liking for Branwell or

00:48his work and he felt that the likenesses were quite poor. The only one that he thought was a good

00:56likeness was this figure so he actually tore this profile portrait out of the canvas and kept it

01:05and destroyed the rest of the painting and many years later after Nichols' death in 1906

01:141906 this painting along with another surviving group image were found folded up on the top of a

01:21cupboard and they were acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London and we have this painting

01:29on loan and now until the end of October. It's a really exciting loan and for the parsonage it's lovely

01:38to see the painting back in Howarth where it was painted and we had our busiest Saturday this year

01:47the day that the painting went on display. We have borrowed the paintings before but I think it's about

01:5517 years since this particular painting was in Howarth so we're hoping that you know it's Bradford's year

02:03a city of culture and we're hoping that a lot of people are going to be able to take advantage of this

02:09opportunity to see it here.

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